Alexandria Gazette

LETTER FROM B. W. LEIGH.

"Richmond, May 16, 1839.

Gentlemen: Your letter of the 10th instant, inviting me to the public dinner to be given to the Hon. William C. Rives, at Amherst Courthouse, on the 20th, has been delayed on the road, and I did not receive it till yesterday.

I thank you for the polite terms in which you have communicated the invitation.— Business, which requires my constant attention at home, would have prevented me from availing myself of it, if it had been received in time. But, candor compels me to add, that that would not have been the only or indeed the principal reason which would have induced me to decline it.

I have seen much in Mr. Rives's recent conduct to respect and approve. I am most desirous to see every man sustained against that despotism of party, wielded by the patronage of the Executive, which allows no independence of thought or action, and which, after having destroyed so many public men, is now levelled against Mr. Rives in his turn with its usual ruthlessness of vengeance. And after having seen the Senate of the United States humbled and degraded at the President's feet by the Expunging Resolution, and its influence in a manner struck out of our political system, it has afforded me particular pleasure to see Mr. Rives asserting and maintaining, in that body, his own independence of Executive control, and, at the same time, the independence, the dignity, and the just authority of the body itself. Such conduct ought to redeem him from the blame of many former errors and faults.—I am disposed to admit it as a partial atonement for his concurrence in the Expunging Resolution. He is now an object of persecution to the faction whose baleful power he contributed to establish; and I am really happy to see public honors bestowed upon him by others who take a different view from mine of the present state of politics.

But so long as Mr. Rives holds himself wholly uncommitted on the subject of the Presidential election, I cannot, in honor and conscience, commit myself to the support of Mr. Rives—at the same time, I am aware that my support or opposition is utterly insignificant and inconsequential to him and every body else but myself.

While the doctrine stands admitted, that the President is entitled by the Constitution to the custody of the public treasure, it is, in my humble opinion, a question of comparative insignificance, whether the system of sub-treasuries, or the select State bank system, with general or special deposites, or any other scheme for keeping the public treasure, which the wisdom of the Legislature or the ingenuity of the Executive can devise, shall be adopted; for, in effect, the custody of the public money will still be in the President alone. It is the doctrine itself, which it behooves the people to explode and condemn, as the most false, the most impudent, and the most dangerous of all Executive pretensions.

I regard the Presidential election as in truth the only important question, the great question of national interest, which involves and absorbs all others, in the present picture of affairs. Nothing, in my sense of things, can stop, or even check, the transition of the Federal Government into a mere elective monarchy, and a monarchy, elected through the instrumentality of the most malignant faction and the foulest corruption, but the dismission of our present rulers from the public councils and confidence forever; rulers I call them, for they are our masters in fact, whatsoever they ought to be in theory; and hard masters too, who maintain and pay the army of partisans on which they depend for power, by openly and avowedly dealing out the honors and emoluments of office, without the least regard to any merit but party zeal and party services.— In one instance at least (and I believe in many more) an officer, after having received and appropriated public money to his own use, has been knowingly permitted to retain his office, and to enjoy the spoils, in order to secure the continuance of his own and his friends' support of the Administration; and the Cabinet minister, who was President Jackson's instrument in this gross and indecent abuse of Executive patronage, is still President Van Buren's Secretary of the Treasury. Corruption is raising her head without shame, without fear, and (so far as the dominant faction and reigning dynasty is concerned), without reproof.—

The stimulus to the Agrarian spirit administered by the government at Washington, through all its organs—the cry of the poor against the rich, which has been willfully and successfully raised—the clamor against all independence in the administration of justice, is but the prelude to an assault on the principle of property—those disgusting professions of ultra Democracy, louder and louder, always, in proportion to their conscious insincerity—and the success of these odious and dishonest arts; these are symptoms of degeneration from our Republican institutions, the nature and tendencies of which are not to be mistaken by any man who has bestowed the least attention to the history of the progress and downfall of Republican Governments. And unless the practice of these arts can be signally rebuked, by discarding from office the unhappy or guilty man, who willingly or by compulsion, is the leader, or the tool, of the faction which practices them, I for one shall cease to have hope of the Republic.— In fine, I must insist, that Mr. Rives and every honest man thinking as he thinks of the measures of this Administration, ought to stand forth with Mr. Tallmadge, and proclaim uncompromizing hostility to the election of Martin Van Buren."

I have written this letter, to avert the possibility of any misunderstanding of my own opinions by those who have thought proper to honor me with the invitation which you have communicated to me. Whether these opinions are right or wrong, as I entertain them, it is but honest to avow them. But I am by no means desirous that you shall publish them— though I have no objection to your doing so, if you think proper.

I am, gentlemen, with all respect, your obedient servant,

B. W. LEIGH.

To Messrs. Gamm, Patteson, &c."